Advances in Wearable Sensing Technologies and Their Impact for Personalized and Preventive Medicine

Abstract

Recent advances in miniaturized electronics, as well as mobile access to computational power, are fostering a rapid growth of wearable technologies. In particular, the application of such wearable technologies to health care enables to access more information from the patient than standard episodically testing conducted in health provider centres. Clinical, behavioural and self-monitored data collected by wearable devices provide a means for improving the early-stage detection and management of diseases as well as reducing the overall costs over more invasive standard diagnostics approaches. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the ongoing key innovations in materials science and micro/nanofabrication technologies that are setting the basis for future personalized and preventive medicine devices and approaches. The design of wire-and powerless ultra-thin sensors fabricated on wearable biocompatible materials that can be placed in direct contact with the body tissues such as the skin will be reviewed, focusing on emerging solutions and bottlenecks. The application of nanotechnology for the fabrication of sophisticated miniaturized sensors will be presented. Exemplary sensor designs for the non-invasive measurement of ultra-low concentrations of important biomarkers will be discussed as case studies for the application of these emerging technologies.

Smart Wireless Charging Heating Insoles: Improving Body Thermal Comfort of Young Males in an Extremely Cold Environment

“…In fact, an increasing number of commercial heating insoles have appeared on the market. The heating insole was normally engineered by placing an electrically heated fabric on the surface of an insole, which is charged by a lithium battery located in a protective box that is fastened around the leg or embedded into the insole at the heel region (Lauren, 2020; Nasiri & Tricoli, 2018). However, the batteries embedded in the commercial heating insoles provide short heating durations and uncomfortable using experience (Nasiri & Tricoli, 2018).…”

“…The heating insole was normally engineered by placing an electrically heated fabric on the surface of an insole, which is charged by a lithium battery located in a protective box that is fastened around the leg or embedded into the insole at the heel region (Lauren, 2020; Nasiri & Tricoli, 2018). However, the batteries embedded in the commercial heating insoles provide short heating durations and uncomfortable using experience (Nasiri & Tricoli, 2018). Moreover, most commercial insoles are heated on their surface and powered by batteries with fixed electric power magnitudes (Nasiri & Tricoli, 2018).…”

Nanostructured Gas Sensors for Medical and Health Applications: Low to High Dimensional Materials

“…Compared to current standard diagnosis methods such as slow and invasive blood tests, gas sensors specifically designed for human breath analysis are an attractive alternative with real time as well as rapid and accurate diagnosis of diseases [3,4]. This ability of gas sensors to detect diseases is, in part, due to the nature of human breath, which along with containing the expected gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and carbon dioxide also consists of other trace species including ammonia (833 ppb), acetone (477 ppb), ethanol (112 ppb), acetaldehyde (22 ppb), and propanol (18 ppb) with some even at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion [1,5]. When the concentrations of these trace species changes, it can be a sign of a specific disease in the case of diabetes the volatile organic compound acetone can act as a marker between healthy and diabetic patients [6,7].…”

“…Likewise, changes in the trace species of H 2 S, NH 3 , NO, and toluene can be used to diagnose halitosis, kidney malfunction, asthma, and lung cancer, respectively [8,9,10,11]. However, in order to be an effective biomedical diagnosis tool, gas sensors need to be highly sensitive to make the distinction as for example in the previous case only a <1ppm acetone concentration difference exists between the two [1,5]. However, the concentration of these biomarkers in exhaled breath may change due to a variety of parameters, such as environmental conditions or patients’ medical history [12].…”

An Intra-Oral Optical Sensor for the Real-Time Identification and Assessment of Wine Intake

“…Point-of-care biosensensors are developed to help in the early diagnosis, periodic monitoring, and treatment of disease. Wearable sensors have recently received considerable interest for real-time monitoring of different parameters, specific for the wearer’s health, in a wide range of biomedical point-of-care biosensors [5], sport [9], diet-related diseases [10], and military scenarios [11]. Most of the activity on wearable sensors has focused either on the non-invasive monitoring of vital signs via electrophysiological signals, as, for example, electrocardiography, electromyography, photopletismography, pulse oximetry, etc.…”